# Is readability ignored in mathematics? If so, why? [duplicate]

Most of the math equations use single character as variables name and functions name, there are also Greek alphabets as well.

This is not acceptable in programming since it is too difficult to maintain, good code should be easy to understand. However math people seems to be fine with strange notations and difficult-to-remember variable names.

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## marked as duplicate by Thomas, Hurkyl, Rahul, mt_, Daniel FischerOct 2 '13 at 16:35

I disagree with your point completely. Sure, in complicated mathematics, you may need to have lots of named entities floating around, and it can sometimes be hard to keep them straight. However, many mathematicians actually take great care, and put a lot of thought and effort, in to choosing how to name their variables, functions, spaces, measures, operations, etc.

One facet of this is trying to be consistent with convention -- if $\mu$ is always used to represent a measure in an analysis context, then calling your measure $\mu$ will make it quite easy to remember what $\mu$ stands for when you see it pop up.

The next part of this effort is to ensure that the definitions of our entities stand out in the text (for instance, even typesetting them as "Definition: ...", as well as reminding the reader of definitions for symbols that are used throughout an entire work.

The last thing I'll mention is this: well-written mathematics usually relies more on words than on masses of symbols strung together to form equations. Of course there will be equations in most types of mathematics... but unlike a Calculus student's homework solutions, a mathematical paper will be made up of far more prose than typeset equations.

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Mathematics is all about simplifying things. So mathematicians spend all their time with complicated things, finding the simplicity.
A short calculation might be sequence of ten equations, with several different quantities. If each variable were a phrase, it would be pages long. Just as English uses pronouns, maths uses pronouns all the time. But they can't all be 'it', so they typically get a different letter each.
Computing uses function calls. A piece of code can't be understood until you have understood what each function does. Mathematics has a lot of standard functions.

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